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The concept of the holy war is customarily associated with the thought of a war whose basis or justification is religious in a special way. The connection between ‘holy war’ and ‘holy struggle’ was coined by poets of the time of the wars of liberation against Napoleon, especially Ernst Moritz Arndt (1769–1860). The fact that, after the Enlightenment and the Revolution of 1789, war is presented as holy, rests not on the fact that it was (only) then that the church appealed to war, but on the fact that…

1. a) The concept of religious specialist can denote the results of a permanent division of labor within a religion. The individual members of a religious → group possess distinct competencies when it comes to practicing religion and its acts. In many religions, those who lead religious acts are those who occupy a leading position of honor and power, such as the chiefs of an enterprise, or of the state. But religious specialists can be spoken of meaningfully only where a specific competency in r…

Lunar/Solar Year 1. A calendar presents a system for ordering time by dividing a unit, the year, into a framework whose smallest components are days. This system coordinates a society's social, economic, and religious activities. Objectification and communication are served through ‘natural’ rhythms, impressive meteorological phenomena (seasons), the world of plants and animals, and, frequently, the phases of the visibility of the moon (‘lunation,’ ‘month’). A year built by lunar months (12 × 29.5…

War as a Social Institution 1. Definition: War is an organized carrying out of a → conflict between or among groups equipped with deadly weapons. Unlike the individual exercise of violence, war is therefore a societal institution that permits, indeed legally prescribes, the killing of other persons. Depending on the respective degree of organization and complexity of the societies involved, the profile of war can differ greatly. War presupposes the existence of at least a rudimentary military force an…

A Primary Category 1. Like space, time belongs to the primary categories of human perception and human construction of the world. There is no priority between the two. Time is repeatedly described in metaphors of space (length of time, axis of time), concrete space, at the same time by movements, and therefore by time (three-day trip, or three light-years away). Time appears as a fixed property of the world—unchangeable, encompassing, and subjecting everything to temporalization. Acts and events ca…

[German Version] In 354 ce, the calligrapher Furius Dionysius Philocalus made a codex (extant only in copies) that contained the Roman calendar (Fasti; the only known 4th-cent. example), in addition to chronographical works, lists of consuls, bishops, and martyrs. The codex was a gift for the Roman Christian aristocrat Valentinus. The calendar contains a presumably current compilation of the emperor’s festivals, and dates for the cults of Cybele and Isis, but nothing from the calendar of Christian festivals. Jörg Rüpke Bibliography T. Mommsen, Chronographus Anni CCCLIV, MGH.AA 9…

[German Version] The interpretation of Rome’s history and present role during the Augustan period found expression in the ludi saeculares. In a mixture of conceptions of time that is no longer perspicuous (including the Etruscan theory of a defined series of saecula; discussed at length by Censorinus, De die natali, 17), the beginning of a new, golden age was celebrated in the year 17 bce, conceived as the fifth recurrence of the centennials of the city of Rome. Whether earlier celebrations of the ludi Tarentini (named for their location on the Campus Martius), for example in 249 bce, had t…

[German Version] (Jun 17, 1859, Breslau [Wrocław] – May 11, 1931, Halle an der Saale), Latinist and historian of religion. Wissowa was an associate professor at Marburg from 1886 to 1890 and a full professor from 1890 to 1895. From 1895 to 1923 he was a professor at Halle. Two strokes in June of 1923 ended his scholarly career and marked the beginning of a long mental and physical decline. Wissowa’s influence rests primarily on his studies of Roman religion. His compendium Religion und Kultus der Römer (1902, 21912) constituted the foundation for the study of Roman religion through…

[German Version] (Sep 21, 1868, Emden – Jul 13, 1941, Zürich), Latinist. Norden was professor of classical philology in Greifswald from 1895 to 1899, in Breslau from 1899 to 1906, and in Berlin from 1906 to his retirement in 1935. Because of his Jewish background, he was removed from the board of directors of the German Archaeological Institute, and in 1938 he was forced to resign from the Prussian Academy of Sciences. In 1939 he emigrated to Switzerland. Although all Norden’s extensive oeuvre was…

[German Version] I. Religious Studies – II. The Pantheon in Rome I. Religious Studies In classical usage, attested since the Hellenistic period, a pantheon (Gk pántheion) was a shrine dedicated to “all the gods” ( hoi theoí pántes). In modern scholarship, the term has come to be used in describing polytheistic (Monotheism and Polytheism) systems, in particular the 12 Olympian gods of Greece. This example also illustrates the problem presented by pantheons: what modern presentations treat as a closed system appears in the sources as…

[German Version] I. Religious Studies – II. Practical Theology I. Religious Studies Annually recurring (anniversary is derived from annus and verto) feasts play a central role in the chronological organization of a society: they govern the social perception of the time unit “year”; weekly or monthly rhythms can influence the precise scheduling (Calendar; Roman birthday …

[German Version] I. Terminology – II. History – III. Archaeology I. Terminology The term “city cult” can be understood as a concretization of the veneration of “local gods” (cf. Stolz). There is evidence from the earliest times of municipal settlements with their complex social forms, rites, and feasts concentrated on the local deities' protection and promotion of community (cf. the gods of Sumerian and Babylonian cities described as “king of the city” or “lord/lady of…” or …

[German Version] I. Social Sciences 1. Concept. War is conflict between large groups, peoples, nations, and states conducted by force of arms. The more precise definition of the term and its differentiation from peace are disputed. Behavioral science tends toward a broad definition: war is a specifically human form of intergroup aggression, functional in the context of competition for scarce resources; in it the use of weapons decreases our instinctive inhibition against killing. The theory that war is…

[German Version] I. The Concept – II. Economic Systems and their Theories – III. Economy and Religion I. The Concept The term economy encompasses the totality of all individual actions and social interactions that serve to produce goods (commodities or services [Service sector]) for the purpose of satisfying human needs (Consumption). As a rule, the “production” of commodities means that human labor and …